


When Push Comes To Shove

by Talinor



Series: Nonstop AU [2]
Category: Borderlands
Genre: M/M, Slight Violence, but it's jack so cmon of course there's gonna be violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 23:46:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6775108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talinor/pseuds/Talinor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Through the anger at possibly being betrayed by his husband, he had to admit- Rhys had been a good actor. Either that or he’d just put too much trust in him. Or both, really. It didn’t matter in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Push Comes To Shove

**Author's Note:**

> jack is really weird for me to write idk why

Jack woke up slowly, almost immediately noticing the lack of warm, leggy nerd in his arms. He checked the time first- which turned out to be a couple hours after he’d woken up to Rhys leaving for a meeting.

Why he didn’t just let Jack reschedule it, he’d never understand. He had more than enough power to, and would do so gladly. But no, Rhys didn’t want any ‘special treatment’. Which left him groggy and alone- two things he never liked to be.

Whatever the meeting was about, it could wait. They’d had a good few hours to discuss it, and Jack wanted Rhys with him now. He looked through his comm, searching through the names. Who was the department head again? Hughes? Higgins? No, that wasn’t it. Something starting with H, though.

Hodgkinson? No- Henderson! That was it. Or at least he was pretty sure it was Henderson, he couldn’t really remember. Most of them acted the same around him, all ‘yes sir’s’ and ‘no sir’s’ and ‘please don’t fire me sir, I have a family!’ The sniveling and begging for their lives only made it easier for him to send ‘em out the airlock.

“Yes, sir?” The response was almost immediate- good. “What can I help you with?”

“Sam!” Was his first name Sam? Well, it was close enough. “How’s the meeting goin’, huh?”

“What…” Henderson sounded confused. “What meeting, sir?”

“Cut it out with the ‘sir’ crap,” It only grated on his nerves, but he could ignore that in favor of the question Sam asked him. “And what the hell do you mean ‘what meeting’; you know what I’m talkin’ about here. Right, Hodgkins?”

“I really don’t si-” Luckily Hodgkinson realized his mistake early enough to fix it. Jack’s mood was quickly dropping. “I mean, I don’t know what meeting you’re talking about.”

That had to be a lie. Unless-

No. Not possible. Rhys, out of all people, wouldn’t lie to him.

…Right?

“Actually,” Hughes continued after a long moment of silence as Jack contemplated the worrying possibility. “Is Rhys with you? He was supposed to come in an hour ago.”

It all clicked in that instant. The sugary-sweet promise, the slight tensing in Rhys’ shoulders when he woke up. He’d just chocked it up to be the kid being hopelessly sappy, as he usually was. But nope, it was an act. A mask to cover up the lies.

Through the anger at possibly being betrayed by his husband, he had to admit- Rhys had been a good actor. Either that or he’d just put too much trust in him. Or both, really. It didn’t matter in the end.

“No,” With that, he hung up. Hodgkinson didn’t deserve his anger. For now, at least. He couldn’t guarantee a couple employees wouldn’t get fired if they couldn’t figure out where Rhys was, though.

He was gonna find where his husband was, and once he did, he would make sure he never tried to leave him again. Any way he could.

-

“What do you mean, you ‘can’t find him?!’” Jack shouted, irritatingly strumming his fingers on the desk. Nobody could find where he went. None of Rhys’ files were accessible anymore.

He’d already fired three guards, five shaky interns, and a couple others so insignificant he couldn’t bother to remember where they worked. It wasn’t really needed, but it helped calm him down enough to try and come up with a plan.

Angel came to mind immediately. With how attached she was to the system, she’d had to notice data wiping of this magnitude. Maybe she managed to save some encrypted files? He could only hope.

But apparently not.

“There’s no security footage of him anywhere,” Angel had told him. “I can’t find him anywhere in the system. It was a complete sweep of data.”

So this was deliberate. 

He had to admit, he was kinda impressed. Rhys had gone through the whole nine yards to escape the space station undetected. He never would’ve thought that his  
little kitten could do something like this so flawlessly. Was he still pissed? Yes- definitely. But he could admire a well thought-out plan.

But a well thought out plan only meant he didn’t think it up all on his own. He probably talked about it before with his friends. That gave him an idea.

“What about Vaughn?” He asked, only realizing he’d been pacing around his office right then.

There was a pause on the other side of the line, and he took the time to look out at the glow of Elpis illuminating one of the corpses floating by. It was an intern, a young thing that stammered at least once every sentence. He didn’t have the patience to deal with that at the time.

They’d had the sense to grab onto the airlock doors, too. Too bad that sense was knocked out of them by some debris in the airlock.

“No traces of Vaughn, either.” Was Angel’s reply. Great. So it was a collaborate escape. He didn’t really care much about the short stack, but he could’ve given Jack information on where-

Wait.

“What about Yvette?” The three were close-knit, but Yvette always seemed like the one most left-out by the bros. Maybe they forgot about her.

“She’s still on Helios.” Angel responded only a moment later with, “I’ve already messaged her to come up to your office.”  
He managed a smile, though she couldn’t see it. “Thanks, Angel.”

-

“Jack?” Yvette walked through the office quickly, though not with the same nervousness most people had. She knew him on a level very few still-alive people did- she knew him before he was the CEO. He’d always liked her, mainly because she was the one who introduced him to Rhys. Vaughn was always relatively cautious of him, but Yvette was never afraid of him. “Meg said you wanted to see me about Rhys?”

He stared out the window, not bothering to look at her. “Have you ever talked about… I dunno, something like leaving Helios?” He also didn’t bother to hide the accusatory tone in his voice.

“Excuse me?”

Jack looked back to find her shocked expression. “You heard me,” She raised an eyebrow. “Have you ‘n your buddies ever talked about it? Planned for it?”

“Well,” She looked… almost ashamed. He’d say shy, if he didn’t know her. She looked down at the floor. “Yeah, we talked about it once in a while. In case something went wrong, we’d leave together.”

He couldn’t help but snicker at that. “Y’know, that’s funny,” He turned around fully, leaning back against the window. “Because if that was true, _you_ wouldn’t be here right now.”

Yvette looked up at him, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean,” Jack said it casually, reveling in her surprise. If this was a surprise to her, if he riled her up just right, he would get information. He’d at least know where to start looking for his Rhysie. “Your buddies? They left without you early this morning. Wiped themselves completely outta the system.” He raised an eyebrow at her, crossing his arms. “Did they really not tell ya’ about it?”

Her eyebrows lowered, and she slowly shook her head. “They didn’t,” He barely heard her say, the words a whisper, an affirmation of her fears. Yvette looked up at him after a moment of silence between the two. He could practically see the gears in her head turning, putting two and two together. “I’m guessing you wanna find Rhys, right?”

“Right on the money, kiddo.” Jack let the smile show, moving off and away from the window to head to his desk. He plopped down in his cushy yellow chair, putting his elbows on the desk and looking down at Yvette. “So, did you guys ever talk about a certain place? One of the Edens, maybe?” There were plenty of posh planets they could go to. That’d certainly make it easier for him.

The people there flinched at the mere _sight_ of a gun. Getting them to give Rhys up would be a piece of cake.

“No,” Yvette shook her head. “Pandora.”

Apparently Rhys didn’t like to make things easy for him. Getting him from Pandora alive and at least mostly unscathed would be a bit of a challenge.

Good thing Jack liked a challenge. And the trouble would be all worth it in the end when he got Rhys back to Helios.

He couldn’t help but ask, “Why?”

Yvette simply shrugged. “It was somewhere people would never think we’d go.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Would you think Rhys would ever run off to that shithole?”

She had a point there.

If he knew Rhys (and he did, duh), he knew he’d look for someplace safe. If not, Pandora was gonna tear a sweet thing like him to shreds in the first hour he stepped on its soil. If it hadn’t already done so by now.

But if it hadn’t, Jack would find him.

Not personally, unfortunately. As much as he would love to go down to that dusty waste of a planet himself and shoot up a couple bandits, he had a company to run. Hyperion would fall apart at the seams without him. He didn’t have time to be the dashing hero that saves the leggy princess from Pandora.

Loader bots were out too, unfortunately. Without any data on Rhys, they wouldn’t be able to recognize him from any other scum sucker bandit on Pandora. That was an accident just waiting to happen.

He needed someone kickass, someone who could handle Pandora easily. Someone loyal to him.

“-Jack?” He barely heard Yvette say. “Was that all you wanted from me?”

Jack nodded. “Yeah, thanks.” He said absentmindedly, mulling over the possible candidates for this. Yvette left without a word, and he ignored the strange look she gave him. He had bigger things to worry about.

Wilhelm was kickass, but he was also murdered by those new Vault Hunters, so he was out. Tim was a possibility, but the little bleeding heart of a man would probably help Rhys instead of bringing him in. Athena could easily do it, but she hated his guts, so she was saved for the worst-case-scenario.

That left the perfect candidate to find his husband. Someone badass, someone who was ruthless and wouldn’t let any bandit scum stand in her way, and- most  
importantly- someone loyal to him. Hell, she’d probably enjoy tearing through the obstacles in her way.

He’d always liked that about her. She understood the rush, the feeling of knowing your opponent is gonna die, not to mention the point where he knows it too. The  
look in his eyes when he knows you’re better than he will ever be and he realizes he’s going to die because of it.

It was a hell of a feeling the first time, and it only got better.

Her number was still in his comm for… reasons. But they didn’t matter right now, and nobody needed to know them. “Jack,” That familiar voice purred. “Long time. How’ve ya’ been?”

“This isn’t the time for small talk, Nish.” He managed to sound calm. It wasn’t that he was annoyed- as a matter of fact, it was pretty nice to talk to Nisha again. It had been a long time. Way too long. “I need ya’ to do something for me.”

“Y’know, that sounds an _awful lot_ like a booty call, but you sound way too serious for that.” Nisha sounded playful, as usual, but at least she finally got to business. “So what is it? Need me to shoot a few numbskulls for ya down here?”

“Probably, but that’s not the point of the job.” He paused, looking over to the picture frame on his desk. A while ago, he’d put it away in his desk drawer. It still hurt to look at, but it reminded him of what he needed to do.

It was a picture of the three of them; a small while before he found out Angel was a siren. Jack’s chin was on Rhys’ shoulder, probably teasing him about something he did. Rhys didn’t seem to mind, however- he was laughing. Angel was smiling, but rolling her eyes at the two.

“You remember Rhys, right?” Nisha only hummed in affirmation. “He left the station. I need you to find him. Do anything you can.”

He could practically see her smile at that last part. “Sounds like my kinda job.”

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr: squishy--squish  
> this was originally gonna be a chapter of 'You Forfeit All Rights to My Heart', but i think it'd be easier for me and my fickle attention span to just get drabbles of this verse out instead of chapter fics  
> also 'you'll be back' from hamilton was perfect for this


End file.
